


Don't Think You Knew You Were in This Song

by azn-jack-fiend (ajf)



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-02
Updated: 2010-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:57:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajf/pseuds/azn-jack-fiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey and Jack meet again after the events of Children of Earth. Mickey considers how his life has changed since their first meeting, how far he's travelled since then, and wonders what he'll say to Jack. In between, he remembers a long, strange dinner party with the Jones family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Think You Knew You Were in This Song

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came to me when I realized that Mickey is pretty much the only human left alive on Earth who a) remembers meeting Jack before he became immortal and b) truly comprehends the significance of that. I wanted to write Mickey's point of view on his travels and how he became a much different person, catching him at a point where he's focusing on someone at the edge of his life (Jack) as well as someone who, offstage, becomes the center (Martha). The title comes from the song "[Five Years](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyFH4S76ErU&feature=related)". Thanks to [heddychaa](http://heddychaa.livejournal.com/) for the fantastic beta that really pushed me to make this the best I could.
> 
> Continuity note: For Mickey's timeline, I decided to follow the fairly mainstream theory that all DW episodes from Season 1 "Aliens of London" and onwards happen a year in the future from when the episodes were actually aired, until the end of Season 4, when they catch up. That means "Boomtown", when Jack and Mickey met, happened in 2006, "Doomsday" happened in 2007, "Last of the Time Lords" happened in 2008 and "Journey's End" happened in 2009, before the events of Children of Earth which happened later that year, in September.
> 
> ETA Continuity note 2: I'm fudging canon a bit to assume that Leo Jones was later captured and put on the Valiant with the rest of the Jones family, and eventually remembered his time there.

~~~

_December 2009_

  
There was a way to do travelling right, Mickey used to think, and he'd never had the knack of it and never would. A few years ago, he'd travelled the farthest he'd ever been in his life, taking that train from London to Cardiff, Rose's passport in his pocket, paranoid as hell, half jumping out his skin whenever he saw a uniform, torturing himself with the unconvincing details of a cover story for a crime he hadn't committed. He couldn't do anything the right way, seemed like.

In Pete's World, the right way to do things stopped being so important. You got things done any way you could, so you could stay alive, keep your mates alive. Get from A to Z, and it didn't matter how.

He walked along the observation wall. Hazy mid-morning light poured through the glass panels; outside, a looming sharp-nosed wedge skimmed the tarmac. An airplane. And this was an airplaneport -- an airport. He hadn't forgotten, he just needed some reminding. Coming over from a parallel world was a bit like jet lag, in the same way that having your fingernails ripped out with pliers was a bit like a hangnail. It was impossible to describe the sheer bloody weirdness, but sometimes, when he tried, he could break it down into little pieces.

As a mental exercise, he forced himself to stand still for a minute and watch the airplane pull up to the gate. He considered its lines, remembering and unremembering.

There weren't that many people at the gate yet. A chaperoned group of kids in crisp uniforms, fidgeting and poking each other. He would have guessed Japanese but they all wore baseball caps that said "Peru". Not many kids left alive in the other Peru. A hippie couple, maybe Germans, tall, rangy, tanned and blonde. A chubby man in a suit stuffing a trailing power cable back into his briefcase. A middle-aged woman in a long black dress and turquoise headscarf, clutching her bulky carry-on with tight fingers and staring at the plane with a hundred times his own intensity.

Nobody looked back at him, and if they saw him, their eyes didn't stay long. Just another traveller. Didn't matter where he'd come from. They were all standing politely at the edges of each others' stories.

Mickey wanted to stay like that for a while longer, hanging back all cool and distant. It was comforting. An airport high. But he was here for a reason, even though he wasn't travelling. Jack Harkness would be waiting at the gate at the end of the long wall. And Mickey wasn't ready.

A shout of "Captain Cheesecake" and a slap on the shoulder didn't seem like the right thing, under the circumstances. "I'm sorry for your loss"? Fucking hell, that sounded like a Hallmark card. He winced.

Maybe Jack didn't want to talk. That was fine. Wait, no, it wasn't, because Jack Harkness always talked, always had words on hand, and if he stayed quiet, Mickey would feel like something terrible was wrong with the world. And it was, wasn't it, because otherwise, how could -- he was thinking in circles now. He cursed under his breath and tore himself into motion, leaving the gate and its travellers behind.

He was just going to wing it. Say hello, pass over the phone. Talk, if that's what Jack wanted. Just don't bring up Torchwood, Ianto, his daughter, Rose, the Doctor, don't mention a whole bloody list of -- Martha. Martha was safe to talk about, right?

He sighed in relief, dodged a luggage cart, picked up his pace. There was no pain with Martha. He saw the line of Jack's coat in the distance, and smiled.

~~~

  
"Last chance to run," warned Martha.

"Nah. You don't scare me," said Mickey. He rang the doorbell. A few crisp heel-clicks, and Francine Jones opened the door. She hugged her daughter.

"And you must be Mickey Smith," she said. There was something powerful about her, and bone-tired, as if she were a queen in exile.

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," he said. She kept a steady smile as she shook his hand, but the corner of her mouth twitched. All it took was a few words and she had him pegged. A few years back he would've taken it hard, turned up the volume on his accent, acted the yob so she'd write him off and he'd pretend like it was what he'd wanted all along. Not much point to that anymore. If the Joneses just met him halfway, that was fine with him.

Their house was bright, comfortable and tastefully decorated, mostly with abstract prints. There was even a colour theme: gold, rust and dark green. It compared favourably to Mickey's old digs, a suite at the Tyler Mansion back on Pete's World, which was a million times grander, of course, but stuffed full of flashy, dodgy Greco-Romo-Deco (that's what Jackie called it, at least).

He'd been living in a bare-bones hotel since coming back, other than a couple nights on the couch at Martha and Tom's flat, so the colours felt extra welcoming.

"Mickey Smith! The great big hero!" came a booming voice from around the corner. Clive, the dad, right? Had to be. Bit of a blowhard from what he'd heard from Martha and Tish. There was a lot of good-natured eye-rolling when the Clive stories came out.

Mickey put on a quick show for him, spraying the room with a laser gun made of air, throwing out "pew pew" noises. Clive rushed him, gathered him into a bear hug and pounded his back.

Tish and Leo were already at the table, setting the plates. Mickey hugged Tish, gave Leo a shake. It always struck him how Tish didn't look a thing like Martha, except when she had the same shining smile, like right now. It was good for the soul, seeing the two of them together.

As for their brother smiling... he'd only met Leo once so far, and they hadn't talked much. He had a feeling Leo didn't talk much to anyone. He looked really fucking depressed.

Dinner was chicken marsala and beet salad and pesto gnocchi. Clive, who ran a catering company, had cooked it all himself. "I'm not one of those cooks who won't bring their work home," he said. "Lazy sods. I'll spend all day in the kitchen if I have to, and all night as well. It's what I love. One of the things I love." He gave Francine a loud kiss on the cheek. She raised an eyebrow but didn't shrink from him.

Martha was awfully quiet. It didn't seem like her. Missing Tom, maybe. He'd been gone a couple days, off at some conference.

When the plates were close to empty, and Clive started to wind down his exhaustive technical explanation of how he got his gnocchi to be so symmetrical and fluffy and perfect, Mickey sensed a change in the air. Martha, sitting across from him, shot him a warning glance, but he was already prepared.

"So, Mickey, where've you been for the last two years?" asked Clive, suddenly serious. "Tell us about this parallel world. Martha mentioned it, but she said the rest of the story was yours to tell. And don't beat around the bush. This family has seen its share of unspeakableness. You don't have to shield us."

He took a deep breath.

"Well, first of all, it ain't been two years for me. More like five years. I went there two years ago your time, stayed three years my time, came back three months later your time. That was Canary Wharf."

They all nodded their heads.

"So the years don't match up. Like a broken zipper and you're trying to force it closed." One of his figures, invented as much for his own comprehension as for anyone else's. They came in handy. _And it feels like you got your knob stuck in the zipper_ was the next part, but that was best saved for different company.

"I spent those three years fighting Cybermen, working for Pete Tyler's Torchwood. Pete, that's Rose Tyler's dad. He died in this world a while ago, but over in our world -- his world, I mean -- he was a big shot. He backed the resistance, hooked us up with the military, got us working together on all sorts of technology."

"What was your position?" asked Francine.

"Field op. Jack of all trades, I suppose. I wouldn't build the tech, but I'd test it in the lab. Modify it. Then I'd go into the field with the rest of the team and test it out against Cybermen. Run away real fast if it didn't work. If it did work, we'd pass it on to the national militaries. Canary Wharf, we were going to get rid of the Cybermen for good, but we bit off more than we could chew. That's when the Doctor and Rose came in."

Driving up to her parents' house, he'd asked Martha if she'd mind, him talking so much about Rose, that is. She'd laughed and told him she wasn't a teenager. But she must have liked that he asked, because the laughter stayed in her eyes for a while after. He noticed things like that, now. Maybe he shouldn't notice so much, when it came to Martha, but he couldn't bloody help it, and anyway, he had a lot of practice living with wanting what he couldn't have.

He talked about the battle of Canary Wharf with the Joneses. They didn't ask as many questions about the Doctor as he'd thought they would. Leo didn't ask any questions at all, just stared at his plate, pushing around pieces of gnocchi.

"After Canary Wharf, we had some breathing room. I got some time off. Spent most of it with my nan. She was the reason I stayed over in the first place. She died over here, about seven years ago, and then she died there, a year ago."

"I'm sorry," said Francine. Her voice had a sharp edge but a sad, soft centre.

"Thanks. I feel lucky I got a second chance with her, really. She was the only family I had. Raised me here." He took a deep drink from his water glass. Not hardly shaking, and that was a relief.

"I started working more in the lab at Torchwood. Went to school part time, tech stuff mainly, part of a special program for veterans. I was on the dimension cannon project. The next time we went over, it was gonna be the last, and I decided to stay, if I made it out alive, and that's what I did."

"Was it hard to say goodbye?" asked Tish.

"Yeah. I was close with all the Tylers, especially. Pete. Jackie, of course, bless her. Rose... well, we had a lot of history, but we ended like we started, good mates. We'd been through too much together. Had to say goodbye to Tony Tyler, that's Jackie's baby. If I'd stuck around he'd be calling me Uncle Mickey any day now. And then Jake... we was real close. Now that's a story and a half. The other me over there, the one who died, he was called Ricky -- "

This was getting onto delicate ground, but he'd had some practice explaining it all to Martha and some to Tish. How Jake and Ricky were boyfriends, but he and Jake were mates, until Jake retired after Canary Wharf and they sort of drifted apart. Jake wanted to start up a magazine. He wanted to move on, start living, and he complained all Mickey ever did was work at the lab and study and watch soaps with his nan, which was true. So they stopped having much of anything to talk about. They'd still call each other every couple weeks, text each other gallows-humour jokes from the liberation of Paris that no one else would understand. He'd left Jake his guns, along with a goodbye note, though he wasn't sure if Jake would even want the guns anymore.

"My God, that's complicated!" shouted Clive. He rubbed his forehead. "And it seems like you're coping just brilliantly. Hats off to you, Mickey. So now that you're back on our world, what are your plans? Working for Torchwood?"

"Nah. Torchwood here is... it's different. It was all more aboveground back there. I'm taking my time deciding what I really want to do. Martha's helping." He nodded at her, then paused for a second to bask in the glow of her returning smile. "In the meantime, Jack Harkness put in a word for me, got me a consulting contract with UNIT."

There were murmurs of "Jack, Jack," all around the table, even one from Leo.

"We're all enormous fans of Captain Jack Harkness," said Clive. "Tell us about working with him."

"Well, that's the thing. I don't know him that well. We met in Cardiff, once. That was three years ago your time. Then I saw him again a few months ago. Other than that, it's just been a few phone calls, and what Rose told me, and Martha. Your family knows him a lot better, really."

"We spent a year together being tortured by a racist alien psychopath," said Francine. "So, yes."

For lack of any better response, everyone smiled. Mickey took another careful sip of water.

"We lived through hell," said Clive, still weirdly jolly. "But we're getting over it, aren't we? You've got to move on. Hardly anyone knows it even happened, and that makes it easier sometimes."

"I don't think so," said Tish, no longer smiling.

"I try to keep it in perspective." Clive kept rolling on. "A sense of humour helps. The other day, I saw a maid costume, and I said to Francine --"

"No," said Francine, and the word cut the air like a razor. "Take. Your own advice. _Move on_." Francine touched the side of her forehead, closed her eyes, gritted her teeth.

"Bloody hell!" muttered Leo, and struggled to sit up. His movements were clunky, uncoordinated. He pushed away from the table and staggered right out of the dining room. Tish, Martha and Francine sprang up and went after him.

Clive sighed. "In theory, a sense of humour helps."

"I heard about Leo," said Mickey. "It's hard." He'd heard about the panic attacks, the medication, the overdose that probably wasn't accidental, the halfway house. He'd talked with Martha about ways he could help Leo, but there wasn't much he could do at the moment. Leo was probably sick to death of hearing about _coping_ and _perspective_.

Clive was in one of those obviously rare moments when he was at a loss for words. They sat together in silence for a minute until the women started filtering back into the dining room.

"Leo's going to have a rest," said Tish. "I'll check on him in a few. He says maybe he can come back out for dessert. He says sorry to Mickey and he'll catch up with him later."

Francine took command of the table again, settling back and spreading her palms onto the cloth. "We were on the subject of Captain Jack Harkness, I believe."

Martha spoke up. "Actually, it's quite fascinating. I mean, that Mickey met Jack three years ago, but it was more than a hundred years for Jack. It was back before he couldn't die. You should tell us more about it. Go on. Please."

That was it, then.

"All right. It's just embarrassing cause, well, I was a bit of a tosser back then. Spent way too much time feeling sorry for myself. Me and Rose was most of the way broken up by then, and meeting Captain Jack was like the nail in the coffin. All I could think was that he was bigger, taller, brighter, with better teeth. Drove me crazy he was travelling with Rose. And the worst part was, he was even a better mechanic than me. Back then it was all I could do to fix the transmission on a Vauxhall, and there was Jack, souping up time machines for the Doctor."

Best be honest. The way Martha was looking at him now, there was understanding in her eyes, not judgement, and that was sweet to see.

"Turned out the mayor of Cardiff was an alien and we had to stop her from destroying the planet. As bloody usual with the Doctor. Captain Jack gave me a field assignment, but I didn't do too well at it. Let the alien get away. They ended up catching her, though. Then I went back to London and they left in the TARDIS. I met up with Rose and the Doctor at Christmas, but the Doctor was in a different body, and they said Jack was dead and gone."

"And of course he wasn't! You can't keep Captain Jack down!" shouted Clive, back in full force himself.

"Yeah, course not. Anyway, those first three years in Pete's World, I didn't know any better, and I thought he was dead. There was a couple times when I was fighting on a mission, and I'd think, I could've talked to Jack about all this, cause he was the expert, you know? That's what he loved to do, talk about fighting robots and aliens and spaceships. And sex with robots, but there was a lot about fighting them too. He talked a big game, but he could back it up, I bet. And I didn't listen to any of that stuff when I met him, or believe it, cause I was too busy moping after Rose and being a jealous tosser."

"You're too hard on yourself," chided Martha.

"Nah, just realistic. I grew up later in life, you could say. But really, I didn't think about him that much, otherwise. Then when I came over to Canary Wharf, and I was undercover at Torchwood One, I was all in their database, and I saw a Captain Jack Harkness at Torchwood Three. Now, that was an absolute mind blower. And the records were full of holes when it came to his name, and the dates didn't match up, but he was at Torchwood Three before I met him, and I knew it must have been after I met him, cause he wasn't so good with modern slang, see?"

"My God, that's complicated," said Clive, and rubbed his forehead again. "Just when I think I get a handle on -- did you figure it out? Was it before or after?"

"I didn't figure it out. Back on Pete's World, I thought I'd never know if he was really alive, or if the Jack at Torchwood Three was there after I met him but before he died. Not until I met him again when I came back, this year, and I knew he couldn't die."

"I filled in Mickey the rest of the way," said Martha. "After Jack met Mickey, he must have died for the first time, but he didn't really die. And then he travelled back in time, a long time ago. I don't know exactly when, just that it was at least a hundred years. The 19th century. He doesn't like to go into detail. And then he actually lived through all those years, so when he met Mickey again, for Jack, it was more than a hundred years later."

While Martha was talking and drawing timelines with her finger, Clive had put a napkin on top of his head. "My brain hurts!" he bellowed at top volume.

"Oh, come on," said Francine, sighing and lowering her forehead onto her hand. This time she was hiding a smile.

"He never laid it out like that," said Tish, "but he'd tell me stories about times in the past. He'd ask me to come up with a famous name. Someone I studied in a class, maybe. I'd give him a name and he'd say he met them, and he'd tell me a story about them and it would be full of the most _shocking_ gossip. Then I'd laugh and say, of course that's not true, and he'd say, no you're right it isn't true, but listen, here's a story that _is_..."

She rested her chin on one hand. Looked off to the side. "He never stopped talking when I was around. As long as he was alive." She kept looking that way, twirling a lock of her hair. "It was -- talking about it helps. I've always believed that. We've got the survivor groups. Sometimes it helps, and sometimes it doesn't, and you never know the difference. Sometimes it doesn't do a thing. The difference..." Mickey felt like he was twisting inside, right along with Tish, but then she found the track again, clearing her face and looking up and straight ahead now.

"I don't think we could say any one of us had it the worst in this family. Mum, dad. Martha was down there, fighting for us all. Leo was on the body disposal crew. I'm -- functional. And that's _luck_ as much as it is work. I'm back to doing most of the day-to-day living a normal person does. Leo's not, he won't be for a while, and we have to go easy on him." Mickey could tell her words were mostly for Clive, and to his credit, he seemed chastened.

She turned to Mickey. "Dad's right about one thing, we're all fans of Captain Jack, and I suppose you can see why."

"Right," said Mickey. "And I'm sorry for what you went through. I know this ain't a contest for whose life got the most cocked-up by aliens, but if it was, you Joneses would have me beat."

They all laughed at that, and some of the tension swirled out of the room.

Tish excused herself to check on Leo, Francine and Martha cleared the plates and Clive went to serve dessert.

Leo came back with Tish, flashing Mickey a nervous smile, a slight tremor in his forearms as he gripped the table to lower himself into his chair. Mickey nodded his head at Leo and gave him a thumbs-up sign.

Once Clive got the speech about the perfection of the tiramisu out of the way, they moved on to other subjects, and the dinner started feeling like a real family dinner, not a temporal mechanics seminar or a group therapy session. Martha talked about UNIT, Tish talked about her master's degree, Clive talked about everything. Francine was an IT consultant, and it turned out she had some good tips for Mickey, especially about billing. They said Leo was taking a yoga class and he said yes he was and yes it was definitely very relaxing.

Pete's World came back up, but Mickey kept it light, breaking into a long list of parallel pop culture oddities and focusing on bits the whole family could relate to.

"-- so the Beatles only put out four albums. And there weren't no Rolling Stones, but Mick Jagger was Dick Jagger and he was in Cream. And Pink Floyd was Purple Floyd."

That drew a fair amount of snorting and table-slapping.

"And Jimi Hendrix. He never died over there. He got even more popular, then he retired from music all of a sudden. Moved to England, renounced his American citizenship and decided to be a sheep farmer in Cornwall. Nobody knows why. They send journalists to his farm every year to try for an interview and he just sets his dogs on them. It was so mad, they started saying 'do a Jimi' whenever someone changes their life all random like."

"So he's still alive?" Francine's eyes were wide.

"Oh yeah, the Cybermen never made it to Cornwall. But you know who died? Ali G. I mean, Sacha Baron Cohen. He did the Ali G routine over there, and he was getting big name interviews where he'd make fun of people, and he went to interview John Lumic -- that's the bastard that started the Cybermen -- and no one ever saw him again. Turned into a martyr, sort of. Used to see graffiti that said 'Booyakasha, where is he?' I reckon he must've been converted."

"Not Ali G!" protested both Tish and Francine. Martha was chuckling and shaking her head. She'd heard this before. Leo looked pleasantly gob-smacked.

"I would say good riddance, but -- well -- my goodness," sputtered Clive.

When the dinner glided to a natural close and he left with Martha, it was hugs all around, not shakes. "You have to come back soon, Mickey. Next week?" asked Francine.

"Couldn't keep me away," he replied.

From the doorstep, Clive shot laser beams at his back.

"That went a lot better than I thought it would," said Martha, as she started the car. Mickey leaned back into the passenger seat, ready to enjoy the ride back to his hotel, whether or not Martha wanted to talk. It was nice just being next to her.

"Your mum and dad seem like they're getting along all right, considering they used to be divorced. That kind of history, you make allowances. I really like your family." He meant it.

"It helps that you were there tonight," she said. "We have so many things in common. When I've taken Tom to dinners -- it's not that they don't like him. They love him. But there are a lot of gaping black holes when it comes to conversation. He keeps recommending new therapists for Leo, and we can't tell him there are only five in London with a high enough security clearance, and three of those are rubbish, and Leo's already been to all of them."

Mickey had, in fact, noticed the absence of Tom talk.

"Martha, maybe it's not my place, but I think you should tell him. Maybe he won't believe you at first, but -- you really think you can go on like that after you get married?"

She was crying. She kept her eyes on the road, her shoulders high and proud, and it was just a couple tears, but she was crying.

"You know what, Mickey? It doesn't matter anymore. Tom isn't at a conference. I never said he was. Everyone assumed. I asked him to leave two days ago. He's staying with his brother."

He fought down a totally unexpected adrenaline surge. "What did he --"

"Wasn't him. It's all my fault. I thought I knew what I was doing. I got used to making quick decisions, and it seemed like it was _right_ I should be with Tom. He was a doctor and so was I, and he'd died for me, even if he didn't know it, and... and... and then a few months ago I realized it was the absolute stupidest, craziest reason to start a relationship that I could ever possibly imagine. And I couldn't get that out of my head. If I really loved him, then it wouldn't matter, of course. But I don't. I should, but I don't. I'm going to hurt him now, or I'm going to hurt him later. So I decided it wasn't fair to him, wasting his time with me, not when he could go on and find someone who really loved him."

She took a deep breath and touched a finger to the corner of her eye.

"It's been tearing me up so bad, Mickey --"

"Ah," he breathed, softly. "Don't be too hard on yourself."

She turned her face ever so slightly towards him. "Thank you."

The simple music of those words rang in the air and cleared his mind and did something to his vision, even. He'd always seen Martha as a woman halfway existing on a supernatural plane, too perfect, strong and achingly beautiful to share the same world as him, and she was all those things and more, but she was lonely up there, and hurting. He'd give her anything she wanted. Anything. If he could just find the right words to let her know.

“Need some company tonight?” Fucking hell. Why did he say _that_? Ruining everything, making her feel even worse than --

“Oh God, yes,” said Martha.

A couple red lights down the road and they were holding hands, not talking much. He must have a crazy crooked grin on his face, he thought.

Inside her flat, he barely got a look at her before she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and _pushed_ until he was back up against the wall, kissing him and then breathing into him and pressing her whole body into him as if she wanted to melt and leave her skin and become him. On a mental level, he was rocketing into space right now, unimaginably high, but on the physical, mechanical level it was _agony _because he couldn't take her clothes off like this, could he, so how was he going to --

He took her down to the floor.

The bed was too far, but at least they made it to the couch.

~~~

  
Mickey drew closer.

Jack stood unmoving at the centre of a large expanse of beige-striped carpet, hands in his pockets. Didn't seem like he belonged there, like someone had traced his coat and cut him out of glossier paper and pasted him awkwardly onto an airport gate. The only thing that seemed fitting was the murmur over the PA system, a singsong mishmash of names, numbers and languages that could have been background noise in a zeppelinport, or a spaceport for that matter, Mickey imagined.

"Hey, you," said Mickey.

"Mickey Smith. My favourite interdimensional playboy!" said Jack, and gave him a great big hug. Up closer, he looked... like Jack. Maybe his smile wasn't quite so wide as the last time they'd met, that was all.

"Reporting for duty, Captain!" When Jack let go, he reached in his pocket for the superphone. He gave Jack a loose salute with the phone in hand. Jack took it, running his thumb up and down along the edges, not really looking at it yet.

"This is the part where I tell a newlywed joke about who deserves who," said Jack. "Let's pretend I got that out of the way. I'm glad for you and Martha. You two make a great couple."

"Yeah, thanks," said Mickey. He forced himself to look in Jack's eyes. "I'm sorry we weren't there when it all went to hell."

Jack didn't say anything.

"You want me to -- show you how the phone works?" asked Mickey.

Jack rolled his eyes but didn't break out the sarcasm artillery. "I think I've got it," he said, flipping it open and dialling. Mickey put his hands in his pockets.

The ringing stopped, and he heard a faint, familiar, "Hullo?" Jack raised the phone to his ear. Mickey didn't want to eavesdrop, but it didn't seem right to sod off, either, so he picked a seat on the bank of chairs a few feet away, resting his elbows on his knees, looking off into empty space somewhere to the left of Jack.

Jack began talking. Not yelling, but none too quiet, either. Mickey started when he heard the first words, because they weren't in English. Then he remembered the Doctor could understand any language plain as day, whatever it was. And he had no idea, because it was like nothing he'd heard before, with a clipped edge that sounded a little German, but the middle of the words sort of drawn out and soft.

It hit him even harder, that sense that Jack didn't belong here.

Jack was loud for a while, and then he was quiet, and then (Mickey couldn't help flashing a glance) he said something almost under his breath while he closed his eyes and let a strangely peaceful smile spread across his face. And then the volume went back up, and he was definitely angry, and there was English again, a few names and phrases surfacing in the stream of foreign words, like "Cardiff" and "government" and "complete fucking failure" and "Mickey" and "months".

"I don't want to hear your voice again. Not for a long time." A pause. "Right. _Tell me about it_." Jack flip-closed the phone.

He looked at Mickey and raised an eyebrow. "That felt good," he said cheerfully. The phone rang. He opened it with his thumb then immediately closed it. "That felt better." He tossed the phone to Mickey.

Mickey caught it and put it back in his jacket pocket, incredibly thankful it had stopped ringing for now.

Jack sat down close to Mickey, stretching his legs out and throwing one arm behind him, sprawling over two seats. "I can't stay long, so I'll get right down to it. I need satellite readings from UNIT's L5 project. I'd get them myself, but, well..." He rubbed his right wrist with his left hand, and Mickey got the point. "I'm going offworld."

"We can work that out. Send you the readings. You mean, like on a spaceship?" Maybe a stupid question, but there were other ways.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I'd rather not get into that, Mickey. It's time for me to go, that's all."

Neither of them said anything.

"So," said Jack, breaking the silence, "how are you settling in? It must have been one hell of an adjustment."

"You could say that. You must know, right? What with all the time travel. It's all right, I guess. Still have weird dreams, like I'm in some other world and forgot which one. And I still -- well, I'll ask your advice on this. I've got this tiny drive with terabytes of stuff from over there, some movies but mostly music, loads and loads of music. I listen to it sometimes, and then I think, what would happen if someone stole it? You could be a millionaire, pretend some of that was your own stuff, cause it's that catchy. It's one of those things that -- I don't know, I love it, but it don't feel right. Sometimes I think it's holding me back."

Jack leaned his head back, thoughtful. "Delete it."

"Yeah." Probably for the best.

"Did _you_ say goodbye?" asked Jack.

Was that Jack Harkness asking advice from him? He could hardly believe it.

"Yeah, I said goodbye to everyone. It was bloody hard."

Jack leaned his head back again. "I'll see you at least one more time, Mickey, along with Martha. I've got to stop by and see the Joneses, too."

_And then that's it, right?_ thought Mickey. Out of each other's story.

"Remember the first time we met?" said Jack.

"When I met Martha's mum and dad, I had to tell them all about it," said Mickey, grinning. "Wasn't that long ago for me. Five years. How many for you?"

"140, give or take a few," said Jack, grinning as well. "Good times."

"You looked -- happy. I remember that."

The PA murmured something about a last call for boarding.

"I've got to go, Mickey."

They stood up. A quick hug and a swirl of coat and then Jack was gone. Mickey turned and looked out the glass, a little dizzy, the world lag lapping at the edges of his mind. He took out the phone to call Martha, but he stood there for a while, watching the airplanes until they were all right again, before he made the call.

  
 

 


End file.
